For a debut album, an artist needs to have some kind of an idea what kind of sound the music should have. Yes, elements of other genres could be in the music, but it’s confusing for the listener to not be able to tell the type of music even through the entire listen of the album. Without the general idea of what the music is supposed to be like, it’s hard to identify with the intention behind the artist’s work.
This was the case with the debut album “People Person” from Everett Bird, a band from Montreal. This album was inconsistent from the beginning, with the first song, “A Blessing In Da Skies,” developing a nice groove but falling short of its potential due to the minute and 59 second length of the song.
Genres represented through this album varied from typical indie rock to garage rock and shoegaze and well as venturing into the realm of R&B. The confusion of the genres made this album really difficult to listen to.
The best example of this confusion is towards the end of this album with the two songs “Shred City Nights” and “Plug” back to back. “Shred City Nights” is a hard, somewhat fast garage rock-based song and, while inconsistent, it matched some of the other songs on the album genre wise. After that song faded out, “Plug” began, a stereotypical indie rock song that echoed some of fellow labelmate Mac DeMarco’s music. The complete shift in genre between the two songs was disorienting.
On this album, the band is at its best when it embraces the garage rock sound, which does not happen often enough. “Bucket of Dark Meat,” the main single from this album, is the closest song on the album to embrace that genre fully, with elements of shoegaze present, but with the vocal style changing in the chorus, the song did not meet its full potential.
Were there good parts of songs? Absolutely! The last minute or so of “Paranoid,” the solo at the end of “My Town” and even the first song “A Blessing In Da Skies,” were great. But, the inconsistencies in those songs were hard to overcome.
On the band’s website, it says that “the album (the band) created meshes rock, jazz, R&B with overtones of punk & garage.” If the band fully embraced its punk and garage sound, it would have been a much better album. Unfortunately, the band did not. Hopefully on the band’s next album, they can find more of an identity.
Downloadable Song: “Bucket of Dark Meat”
Grade: D+
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